Monday, May 14, 2018

Sunday Edition (on a Monday)

These cards were sent by Jim of Elgin, IL. Included were a trio of 2012 needs and handful of 2008 needs. Jim has more or less taken over the responsibility of completing 2008 Topps for me. 2008 was the first year I started collecting after about a thirteen year absence so it'll be sort of nice to finally complete it. With the five Jim sent in this envelope, I'm now a mere four cards away. If your interested, here's what I'm looking for, though I'll probably be on Sportlots this week to close it out myself:

2008: 476, 518, 618, 623

Also included were the two Fleer basketball checklist from 1987-88 and 1988-89. I have a soft spot in my heart for the early Fleer basketball sets, and have really enjoyed piecing them together as they always seemed so unattainable when I was a kid in the early 90's. I mentioned above how I returned to collecting in 2008 after a long absence. But I've returned as a different kind of collector. I used to focus on rookies and was a top loader kind of guy. Now, I'm an unapologetic set builder and fully embrace 3-ring binders. I don't care if I just dropped the price of a dinner at Outback on a card, it looks better in a 9-pocket page with 8 other cards from it's set than a top loader. These really aren't investments for me. They're something I enjoy, so I figure why not enjoy them as much as a I can?

To that effect, I'd like to show off my Fleer Basketball Binder. These sets are small (132 cards plus some stickers), and all three easily fit in the same 1'' binder. Here's a look at how it's coming along:

The 1986-87 Fleer set is two cards away from completion. This was the first one I started building as teenager in the 90's. I'm only missing Larry Bird and Michael Jordan. I recently crossed Magic Johnson off of the list to bring it down from three to two. The Magic and Bird in this set were never really priorities for me as they weren't rookie cards, and I was never really a huge fan of them. As a kid in Phoenix in the late 1980's I was a huge Kevin Johnson the Suns (particularly The Gorilla). I hated Magic and the Lakers and they seemed to always knock "K.J." from the playoffs. As for the Celtics, well, they're from Boston, I don't really like anything from Boston. So shelling out ten bucks or so for the Bird just hasn't been high on my to do list. As for the Jordan, I'd like to short sell stock in that card if I could. This set is not all that scarce. Dozens of new listings appear on eBay every day. I believe with everyday that passes the legend of Jordan fades a little bit as children foolishly argue Kobe or LeBron or some Warrior as the latest and greatest thing (Jordan is still the correct answer FYI), and given the over abundance of the card, the price will drop eventually. I'll wait.

1987-88 is the set of the first three that I have the most work to do on. Two years ago at this time I had maybe three or four cards from this set in my entire collection. I never really targeted it when I was younger, because it lacked the rookies of the other too. 1986 boast the likes of Jordan, Ewing, Mullin, Malone, Drexler, Isiah, and Olajuwan rookies just to name a few. 1988 has Reggie Miller, John Stockton, Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman. This set has, I believe, Herb Williams (no disrespect Herb). I've made some progress but there is still a long way to go. It's probably my least favorite of the three, and isn't exactly cheap, so perhaps I lack some of the necessary enthusiasm to be making the progress I'd like to.

I like this 1988-89 set. As I mentioned above it has some nice rookies and I like the design. As a die-hard Syracuse fan, it's no small detail that Pearl Washington also appears on his only NBA card in this set. This is the only one of the first three that I own the Jordan from, and it's also the only one I have most the stickers for. While I have a few cards to knock out, this set isn't all that daunting to take on, but makes for a nice bookend with the other two. At some point, I may take on some of the 1970's Topps Basketball sets, or maybe the mid-80's Topps Football. Older O-Pee-Chee Hockey also looks fun to me, but as you can see below, I still have some work to do here.